December 26, 2005

Christmas Eve candles in Varna

This morning's Ithaca Journal vists the Varna United Methodist Church for its candelight Christmas Eve service, talking with attendees and giving a sense of the community.

The print edition includes a review of 2005, noting the renovations to Dryden elementary schools as well as progress toward a new Dryden Town Hall and a Cortland Road Sewer District contract, but also noting the the change in plans to a much reduced extension of the Jim Schug Trail which now won't go far toward Freeville.

I've heard that an enormous Kinney Drugs will coming into the Village of Dryden across from Clark's. The Town of Ithaca seems set to add its own enormous (14,500 sq. ft.) drugstore, a Rite-Aid at Judd Falls Plaza, next year. I have to admit that I don't understand the appeal of these places at all. Fay's Drugs used to have sporting goods, which was interesting to look at while waiting for a prescription, but today's giant drug stores seem to fill the space with the same things available at grocery stores, only more expensive.

1 Comments

NYCO said:

Ah, someone else who remembers Fay's... My local Fay's was Store No. 1, the first of all Fay's. There was a commemorative plaque and everything, cruelly ripped out when it became an Eckerd's. But I digress...

You're right about the narrowing of choices at these places, as well as their proliferation. Eckerd's seems to have something like 3 aisles of cosmetics and 4 aisles of feminine hygiene and elder-care products, and oddly, less school supplies. And just directly across the busy road, the suburban tract across the road has THEIR drugstore - a Kinney's. Then a Walgreen's is coming just down the road a piece. I don't get it either.